“Vehicle telematics” may broadly refer to monitoring of the location, movement, status, diagnostic information, and/or behavior of a vehicle. A telematics device may include sensors (e.g., a GPS sensor, accelerometer, microphone, or other sensors) to obtain data relating to the operation of the vehicle. The telematics device may additionally include communication circuitry, such as a radio, to allow communications with remote analytics servers, and/or to place voice calls, such as with other call centers or emergency response centers.
Some vehicle telematics devices function to automatically detect the occurrence of vehicle collisions. The detection of the vehicle collision may be based on the monitoring of acceleration data to determine when a collision is likely to have occurred. The collision may be automatically reported to a call center or emergency response center, where an operator may further evaluate the situation and determine whether emergency response personnel should be dispatched.
When detecting collisions, it can be important to be able to accurately detect all collisions, or to accurately detect all collisions that correspond to at least a threshold of seriousness. At the same time, however, it is desirable to minimize false positives (i.e., events that are detected as a collision but which are actually not collisions). False positive collision events can annoy the driver (e.g., due to a call center operator asking whether assistance is needed) and can cause additional expense and strain on the system.